Overview
A huge success at its first performance in 1728 John Gay's The Beggar's Opera satirized the conventions of Italian opera, using popular tunes to tell the story of rogues and criminals. With his distinctive musical arrangements at its heart, Britten's 1948 adaptation was a significant revision, amounting to a new twentieth-century opera. The BBC film, originally broadcast in 1963, feature a superb cast of English singers..
Cast
Roger Jerome
The Beggar
David Hartley
The Manager of the Company/Mat of the Mint
Brian Handley
The Stage Manager/Slippery Sam
David Kelly
Peachum
Bernard Dickerson
Filch/Wat Dreary
Anna Pollak
Mrs. Peachum
Janet Baker
Polly Peachum
Kenneth McKellar
Captain Macheath
Bryan Drake
Lockit
Heather Harper
Lucy Lockit
Edith Coates
Mrs. Trapes
Joan Edwards
Jenny Diver